A month with TTfone TT990 (or the Kirk Communicator, as I like to call it)
At first I wasn't entirely sure if this was going to work as a main phone, or would only be a secondary one. The only way to find out was to try, so I decided to go with this purely for a month and evaluate.
Short version is that I'm certainly not going back to a big glass brick now I'm used to this excellent phone.
Plenty of room for improvement, but not really in the hardware. That's its strength. It's the OS that could benefit from some tweaks, like more use of the outer screen (it shows the time, and the icon of the app that's notifying, but not much else at the moment) and more options for the three physical shortcut buttons (being able to choose any app or function rather than only from a shortlist of apps). Also, the battery monitor doesn't tell you what's eating power, so investigating battery-destroying apps was a chore. I hear there's an update due, so that might take care of these, none of which are deal breakers anyway.
I've had to be delicate with the battery though. For example, I initially installed Tailscale which I use as both a VPN and as a way to deliver some notifications (more on that in a moment), but it ate the battery fast. Same with Home Assistant - its persistent connection tanked the battery hard. Anything that moderately hits a smartphone battery hammers this one. But take real care with the apps you have on it, and it gives you a day and a half no problem.
It's a de-Googled phone, which is something I very much appreciate. The downside is that no Google Services means no notifications (for the most part). For the likes of us, that's actually a positive thing! But sadly there are some notifications for very select apps (banking, Home Assistant, Beeper, password manager) that I do still want just to operate my daily life.
HA was an easy solve, as there's a cut back version that doesn't look for Google Services. No notifications, but doesn't touch the battery at all. I had to drop Tailscale, but using a combination of Cloudflare and a ntfy server running on my NAS it's really unlocked a great option that, even if I went back to a full smartphone (hurl!), I'd continue to use, in terms of getting notifications in a way that doesn't impact the battery. There's a ntfy integration for HA, so that's done; Signal doesn't need Google Services anyway, so that's sorted; banking apps get their notifications forwarded from my old smartphone which is in a cupboard at home, via ntfy. So yes, there's still a smartphone in play, but I haven't so much as unlocked it for a month. This isn't the place to provide a tutorial on ntfy, but it's worth 10 minutes research if you're looking for Google-free notifications.
I took the TT990 on holiday for a week as a real test, and with a little preparation, it served every need. I created an Organic Maps map of where we were visiting before I left, and the phone worked great for navigation from that. In fact, it did the whole thing offline, as I downloaded the city's map before leaving home, so didn't even need data. For boarding passes and such, I sent the QR codes to myself in Beeper before leaving, and the airport scanners had no problem if the phone was on full brightness. Spotify hasn't blinked in the least, and I've been using it plenty. A small 5000mAh powerbank gave me two full charges, which took it to over three and a half days use without plugging in.
I know there are layers of complexity in what I've just talked about, but switching away from a big fat smartphone does take some preparation if you don't want to fall into the trap of slipping back into the screen. That being said, I had to stop myself at one point when I realised I was working to turn the TT990 back into the smarphone I wanted rid of. Doing without smart features is the reason we want dumb/transition/small phones back, so knowing when to stop with the features and workarounds is important. Get the essentials working well, then stop. I had to tell myself that a few times.
I'm not doomscrolling or reaching for the phone any more, I make calls rather than sending WhatsApp messages, and it finally feels like I'm using the phone rather than it using me, which was why I took the chance on this device in the first place.
And I get to flip it open and closed, Kirk style. It's worth it just for that.
Overall, A+.